Jun 27, 2007

I mean, really, how often have you used a virtual table top? Let alone an online one... Anyway, it seems they can come in quite a bit handy, provided you're not looking forward to putting your ornate tequila glass on them, but rather using them for some lovely pen & paper RPG gaming with your friends. Online, that is.

You see, them virtual tables provide gaming groups with everything they need to play their RPG of choice without having to physically meet or touch any sort of dice, which might seem quite the antisocial thing to do, but can be very helpful for playing with friends living thousands of kilometers away or for spending some truly productive time at work. Open RPG for example offers players and GMs an integrated environment complete with miniature map, die rollers, chat, data organizer and the ability to run ones own game server, that's flexible enough to host any game system imaginable.

What's more, Open RPG is absolutely free to use and you can download it here. A huge variety of plug-ins can be found here, whereas online-gaming maps are available here and quite a few hand-drawn "miniatures" here. Oh, and if you really feel like paying for something you could give Fantasy Grounds a try.

As for Gnome's Lair, well, you know, being the happy cheap ass gamers we all are, we could give this online RPG thing a go. The entity behind from the gutter seems to be interested in it already, and rumours have been heard of a Call of Cthulhu session. Anyone interested, please, do leave a comment or drop me a line. Could be fun you know...

Jun 26, 2007

Yes, it's been less than a month, but Decker's Delight Links are back way sooner than expected, though definitely not sooner than promised. Now, turn on the A/C, drink a lemonade, jack into cyberspace and enjoy some of the web's best bits (with a strong retro flavour)...

Richard Cobbet, the man with the (excellent) journal, has gone out of his way to remind us just how powerful a weapon humor can be, especially against the puny forces of ignorance, bigotry, fascism and sheer bad taste. Manhunt 2: UK edition is his take on the Manhunt 2 censorship issue.

And speaking of historians let us not forget their more commodified version: collectors. They'll be glad to know that Game Set Watch has gone all Retro Treasures loving (well, almost) and published an exhaustive SEGA Genesis collector's guide, covering everything from the original MegaDrive, to the fabled Neptune, to the unappreciated Sega CD.

Now, keeping with the retro theme of this DDL installment and searching around the mainstream sites, I noticed GameSpot presenting the truly excellent Unsung Heroes: Groundbreaking Games from Computer History. It's a feature article on the forefathers of Civilization, The Sims, the FPS sniper rifle and the inspiration behind some wildly successful contemporary games.

Oh, and as Independent Gaming wisely noticed, the latest issue (that, would be no.2) of the RGCD discmag, the essential discmag for retro gamers, is finally available for download right here. Its 170MB of game files, dozens of reviews and 6 wholesome features are something you must absolutely see for yourselves.

ZX Spectrum lovers, or more precisely people who wish they had loved an 8-bit Speccy when it was young and perky, should be thrilled to know that the mysterious individuals behind the HEXUS.gaming personas have prepared a feature on the games of the ZX Spectrum just for them. Ok, us too.

Jun 23, 2007

Ok, the video above (apparently an RZX Archive production) is something you probably won't be using as a walkthrough per se; I'll admit that. On the other hand, it will more than give you an idea of what to expect from Skool Daze, the definitive generation defining ZX Spectrum classic and grandaddy of all freeform a la GTA gameplay. To find out more, you could try actually playing the original game online, reading the relevant World of Spectrum bit or giving the excellent Klass of '99 freeware retro remake a go.

Jun 21, 2007

Suppose a mad scientist crossed a smurf, Superman, the Quake engine and lots of colorful weaponry. What would he come up with? Not much, surely. Suppose, now, a talented -mainly German- modding team got the same ingredients, updated to the Quake III: Arena engine and added a splash of humor. What would they come up with? But, The World of Padman of course, a brilliant freeware FPS.

The game, a hefty 550MB download, is a hectic shooter set in cartoony world, that utilizes the now open-source Q3 engine and features 3 distinct game modes, a dozen or so maps and some genuinely bizarre weapons and power-ups. Get it right here and, while you're at it, do have a stroll around the official WoP site. Oh, and just to make sure, know that this is a standalone game, not a mod. There's is no need to have anything Quake III related installed. What's more the game runs on Windows, Mac and Linux.

Jun 20, 2007

Fallout 3 by Bethesda will soon be a reality, but I'm pretty confident it won't manage to reach the level of depth, atmosphere, tactical thinking and sheer quality of the brilliant CRPG classic that was Fallout 2. You see, no matter how finely the Oblivion engine gets tweaked or how well the quasi turn-based combat system is integrated, Fallout 3 will definitely lack the bondage & erotic gear. What bondage gear? Well, that bondage gear (use your imagination):

Jun 19, 2007

So, uh, let's start with a disclaimer, shall we? Lovely. If you are one of the few proper pen & paper RPG gamers frequenting Gnome's Lair, then you really don't need to read any further. Really. You'll probably know all there is to it. If, on the other hand, you are video gamer or preferably a video gamer that can appreciate the intricacies of Fallout, the vast worlds of Morrowind, the demented setting of Planescape and truly enjoy your average (or garden) video game RPG, then you might just be interested in finding out a bit more on them pen & paper RPGs, the sources of inspiration behind every CRPG from Ultima to Fallout 3, in which case you should probably read on.

For starters, in an ideal world, nobody in their right mind would ever dream mentioning pen & paper before the RPG bit. The later should be enough, mainly because the vast majority of computer/video game RPGs (CRPGs) lack the actual roleplaying bit, at least in the more traditional sense, which of course you wouldn't know unless you had already played a real RPG, something rather impossible as you wouldn't be reading this very article, would you now? Anyway. All a CRPG ever did to earn its role-playing title was borrow some ideas (e.g. character creation), game mechanics (e.g. combat, hit points, to-hit modifiers) and/or setting (e.g. The Forgotten Realms, Shadowrun), but never came close to emulating the true, traditional, wholesome, imaginative, wholly satanic and ridiculously time-consuming RPG experience.

So, what is an RPG? Well, it's a role playing game, that's what it is. Players assume roles and act out impromptu parts -following certain rules and in thoroughly defined settings- much like actors in radio theatre. Only, this is interactive theatre. You not only take part in a story but actually help tell it, as you're absolutely free to do whatever crosses your mind.

How is this achieved? Simple. One of the players assumes the very important role of Game Master, Storyteller, Dungeon Master, Keeper, whatever. Let's call him -as most RPGers do- the GM. Well, said GM's job is to act as the other players' senses, describing everything they see hear and smell, as the general organizer of play, as the narrator of the main plot and as the ultimate rules referee. His or her job, essentially, is to be what a PC or games console is -say- to an Oblivion gamer: the screen, the speakers, the physics engine, the enemy A.I., the voice of Patrick Stewart. The major difference though is that a GM, unlike even 2 PS3s supported by a Pentium 5, can react and adopt to absolutely anything a player might come up with...

Hence the importance of the rest of the players in the storytelling part. They are free to experience, twist, enrich, play through and ultimately shape the GM's plot, always following some rules, not unlike those a video game would impose on a gamer. Rules, that determine whether a player kills a monster, is stealthy enough to bypass a drowsy guard or even adequately desirable to organise an orgy. What's more, and just like in the vast majority of CRPGs, players get to create a character, an in-game persona, typically called the PC or Player Character, as opposed to the NPC or Non Player Character, obviously played by the GM.

What must absolutely be understood is that the GM is not the adversary of the players. He or she is just an instrumental part of a group of people enjoying a storytelling game. After all, there is no antagonism among players. Nobody can win in the traditional way and the game never really needs to end, as PCs grow older, more experienced and set forth for new adventures (in true MMORPG fashion). RPGs are collaborative, social, storytelling, imaginative affairs, totally unlike board and war games, even though they might share the use of dice -usually to determine the success of an action, be it combat or not.

Now, provided you're even slightly intrigued, here are some pretty popular games/systems/settings (they usually come in the guise of books, you know, them nice papery things) to get you started. Surely you'll recognize some of the names... Dungeons and Dragons (the father of the modern RPG, pretty complex, but perfectly balanced rules, huge variety of mostly fantasy settings), Call of Cthulhu (simple rules, fantastic insanity system, spawn of Lovecraft, brilliant and comfortably short scenarios) Vampire / WoD (simple and extremely versatile rules, Gothic feel, excellent prose), Shadowrun (very tactical, smart hacking mechanics, cyberpunk meets fantasy setting), Rolemaster (more complex than an accountant's spreadsheet, but weirdly enjoyable) and the utterly notorious Aftermath!.

Anything else you care to know? Well, that's what the comments section is for, you know...

Independent Gaming, the indiest (?) source of indy and freeware games with an understandable soft spot for adventure games, has been kind enough to inform everyone that the first two (weirdly 2MB each) freeware noir-ish episodes of The 8-bit adventures of Fedora Spades have been released. Each episode should offer 2-3 hours of menu driven adventuring and both are happily based on the most interesting Tomato Engine. Get them here.

Jun 17, 2007

ColecoVision, the only console ever produced by a leather company, a regular at the Retro Treasures blog, early home of Donkey Kong and an obvious source of inspiration for the Atari Jaguar controller, is also the retro gaming machine with the simplest and most intuitive freeware emulator I've ever come across: the Virtual ColecoVision. All you need to do is download the emu's archive, extract the files, run the aptly named VColeco executable, load a ROM and play away.

Happily, the above link will also get you some -legally okay, I guess- free Colecovision games to get you started. As for me, well, I'd suggest you give Donkey Kong, Zaxxon, Burger Time and Mr. Do a go. Oh, and do check the pretty relevant Wikipedia entry too.

Jun 16, 2007

Ah, freeware games. An impenetrable bastion of bedroom coding and a constant source of design innovation. Gotta love 'em, right? Right. Then again, admittedly, commercial games aren't that bad either, besides of course the slightly annoying bit where you have to actually pay for them. But, let's be honest. They are usually a more polished, more complex, longer and probably better looking affair. That's the reason we all feel this warm and fuzzy feeling we do when they actually get released as freeware. That, and the fact we might get a chance to finally see what the reviewers were banging on about. What follows is rather obvious...

Elite and Elite Plus (for the PC), the massive space exploration-trading-pirating epic by Ian Bell and David Braben is available for download here, whereas versions for the Amiga, the ST and a variety of consoles, manuals, novellas, musicals and even bits of the code are generally available there. Newbies, beware, as this game is bigger than Oblivion, more addictive than LotRO and probably a serious candidate for the best game ever crown. And to think it started life on the BBC micro...

R-Type (Amiga) by Irem is as classic an 80s shmup as they get, but also a game sporting some pretty innovative mechanics and mighty impressive visuals, at least for the era during which people did bother calling shmups shoot 'em ups. Download it for free over at the Factor 5 website, where you'll also find some lovely and equally free versions of Katakis and BC Kid. Oh, and you might need the pretty handy UAE Amiga Emulator.

Alien Carnage (Windows) developed by SubZero and published by Apogee, a game also known as Halloween Harry, is a zombie & alien shooting side-scrolling platformer. It's all cartoony too. To give it a shot, click here, scroll down the page and download it.

Strategists with an eye for metal beasts and capitalists that are a bit low on cash will definitely enjoy Sid Meier's Railroad Tycoon (Pc), a very genre defining game indeed, and one you can get by following this very link and then clicking on the aptly named Free Full Game Railroad Tycoon button. In case you haven't figured it out yet or are too old to remember, it's a turn-based railroad building game, it is.

Savage: The Battle for Newerth (Windows), on the other hand, is a FPS-RTS hybrid that will cater to our more action-oriented, fantasy/sci-fi obsessed brethren and their twisted needs. Mind you, it's an online game with definite MMO tendencies. Play it for free and download the retail version over at s2games.com.

Advertised as the DOOM of 2D & platform gaming, Abuse (Pc) was a brilliantly fast-paced roller-coaster of a Metroid clone. Now, it's freeware, still using the keyboard-mouse control method it pioneered, frantic as ever and happily available here. Features some pretty stunning pixel art too.

Battle Chess (Windows) by Interplay , one of the few multimedia games available during the early 90s, was and shockingly still is a chess game, and, frankly not a brilliant one at that either. What really makes it worth a try though, are its animated battling pieces and impeccable -even to this day- visuals. Download it @ RIP.

Jun 15, 2007

Truth be said, us gamers of the male variety can be a really sad bunch. I mean, getting excited by Lara? That's just pathetic. Then again, it could really be worse... It could be raining, or -heavens forbid- we might just see Lara semi-nude, lose what's left of our morality and faint. Thankfully then, the latest nude patch for Ms. Croft, the one for the rather brilliant Tomb Raider Anniversary game, is grotesque enough to put anyone's fantasies to sleep. Try it out here, horrify your friends, forget your anatomy, shock your visual artists and irritate the puritans.

On a more serious note and regarding said puritans, I just can't see how a pair of tits can be considered as more dangerous, corrupting, evil and/or immoral than a pair of guns. Or to put it the way a certain female modder and creator of the Oblivion Topless mod put it while describing her own mod: "The file included removes the bra welded to the skin of females of all races, showing things as most people know they are in the real world after removing upper body clothing. It will not show every female in the game as topless. I do this because I hate government, society, whatever [for] forcing companies to protect our innocent population from seeing those evil dirty things 50% of them posses personally anyways".

You do remember Mike Bithell, don't you? Well, if not, you really should, you ungrateful bastards, you (and Mr.Elderly, please, do stop the stalking)! The man, a most talented young game designer and visual artist with an impeccable taste, has already given you the brilliant Visiting Day PSP freebie and the beautiful and quite freeware web-based Reunion game. Now, he's offering some insight into how he came up with and designed said video games, along with some fine artwork and a brilliant example of an aspiring professional's portfolio.

Where? Over at the Power Up blog and in pure PDF format. To be more precise the portfolio PDF is available here, whereas both the Reunionartbook and the concept document are available here.

Jun 14, 2007

It was quite obvious that Vince Twelve of independent (and usually freeware) adventure game developer xii games was up to something, but he just kept refusing to let us in on the details, let alone on the intricate script. Yes, despite having him face the Spanish Inquisition twice, complete with comfy chairs and soft cushions.

Then, all of a sudden, he just went on and admitted that: a) xii games has been working on its first commercial game since May, b) the name of the game will be Resonance, c) a very experienced team has already been assembled and d) the first -of hopefully many- developer's diary is available right here.

Now, in case you feel you need to know more and can't be bothered to read said developer's diary, here's a lovely interview with Vince by yours truly and this is the last game he came up with. Apparently, 't was none other than the critically acclaimed, brilliantly named and wildly innovative What Linus Bruckman Sees When His Eyes Are Closed.

Jun 12, 2007

Racketboy, an online persona and a retro gaming website/blog thingy with tons of quality content (recently interviewed over at the Saturn Junkyard), is apparently having a 3-year anniversary. And giving away some robots too I guess, so better drop by and wish the glorious boy the best. Hopefully tea and cookies will be served.

As for the poor (probably damned) souls that haven't visited the place already, may I suggest you a) visit it right away and play around its retro halls, b) go straight to the excellent Sega CD post cunningly titled The Cheapest SEGA CD Games Worth Your Time and learn all about Sonic CD, the consolized version of Rise of the Dragon, Flashback and more, while finding out just how well priced retro gaming is.

Jun 9, 2007

After inexplicably spending some time with the completely uneventful and not particularly massive ChainSAWn MMORPG -the only game ever having you explore a completely blank 100x100 grid- I went on and created a brand new e-mail account. What for? Well, it's a long silly story, but all you really need to know is I finally managed to enter the pop world of World of Warcraft and join a couple of million people in slaughtering its well-designed fauna. For 14 whole free trial days, mind you, during which (at least the 4-5 of them I actually played the thing) I absolutely failed to grab any screens whatsoever. So, here's all the WoW related eye-candy I'll be posting for this 3rd MMOG act:

Not bad, is it? Better look for more at the official site. Better yet, try the 14 day demo, as I did, but do expect downloading massive amounts of data and then some more. And then come another hundred Mbytes of patches, a simple registration bit, a pretty basic character creation process and you'll be ready to see what this WoW thing is all about, which frankly isn't that much.

To be fair, though, I must admit the game's not so much at fault, despite featuring little more than glorified fetch and killing quests. It really started off with the wrong foot, by having my online persona, Gnomie Freeware himself, a roguish gnome and a lover of butterflies, kill dozens upon dozens of harmless hogs, dogs and other monsters of the kind, during the exact same period I was reading William Cronon's account on the slaughtering of millions of buffaloes in the wider Chicago area during the 19th century, which had put me in an admittedly rare ecologically sensitive phase. Killing harmless beasts wasn't -at the time- exactly what I had in mind.

Thankfully, things picked up as quests shifted from killing fluffy things to killing orcs, ice monsters and an assortment of other typical RPG baddies, that apparently don't have mothers. The interface, the comic book quality of the graphics and a shockingly fine community of players started making WoW a fun experience, let alone an addictive one. For a couple of days all I kept thinking of was progressing my character and exploring the major cities, even though they offered a pretty low -unacceptable even- level of interactivity. Heck, I actually went as far as socializing a bit, joining raid parties and even sharing a joke or too.

Finally, after reaching level 13, starting a couple of non-gnome characters out of sheer curiosity and taking a short WoW break, I just got bored. Yes, despite being part of the phenomenon that gave birth to the particularly NSFW (especially for priests, rabbis, ayatollahs, but not for the more humane shamans) and seemingly defunct Whores of Warcraft. Just didn't feel I cared enough for Azeroth, which -better face it- is as derivative a fantasy setting as they get, to spend more of my time on it. Apparently, clicking on stuff and waiting for them to die isn't my thing... Decided I'd better wait for Warcraft 4 and started fantasizing about the glories of Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar. More on the later, next time.

Jun 7, 2007

The Wii might have a Virtual Console playing beloved and merrily overpriced retro classics, but now the web has gone all antagonistic to Nintendo's blatant commercialism and created its very own, very literal, very free & indy virtual console thingy, that plays virtual custom cartridges: PixelBoy. It looks like a handheld, behaves like a Java machine, changes colour with a simple click and, should you feel like giving it a try, is available right here.

As for Meteor Busters (a.k.a. Escape the Planet - Meteor Busters v.2.0), the only PixelBoy game available right now, and thus a rather obvious choice, it's a fantastic old-school Raiden-esque shmup with some brilliant monochromatic pixel art. The game of course is freeware and even provides gamers with a storyline, albeit one about a Galactic Confederation and some notoriously huge meteorites. Play it using the arrow keys, the space bar and your reflexes (ho ho; what a hilarious little bastard I am... tsk).

Jun 5, 2007

Gnomes know they can always rely on Deckers to help 'em out with a blog when things get tough (and hectic as hell). Then again, why should you care? Better ignore this intro bit altogether and jump straight to some of the more interesting and eclectic gaming ...uh... stuff the Internet has recently spawned. The rest of the best will soon follow.

The Free Geek, being free, a geek and apparently quite fond of freeware games has compiled a Top 10 list featuring 10 free online games. Definitely worth a look, especially if you feel the very kitsch very addictive SpaceCowboy can be your thing.

Malinche Entertainment, the only contemporary (I think; please, feel free to correct me) developer of commercial interactive fiction / text adventure games, has gone all retro and created a brilliant Zork tribute page, properly celebrating 30 years of Zork. There's also a chance you might get your very own Zork t-shirt...

Old fashioned adventures might also appreciate an impressive feature by Destructoid regarding the beautiful but obscure Neverhood. The only game that will ever dare compete with the visuals of Tim Burton's Nightmare before Christmas.

Now, to my newest obsession... The utterly brilliant Richard Cobbett Journal, a hallowed place of rare Internet quality and excellent prose, that just came up with Cirque du Strange. A loving tribute to the strangest, weirdest, or just plain wrong-est moments in PC gaming.

Jun 3, 2007

Tomleece the Ancient created the Dreamcast Junkyard back when the Internet was a SEGA-less chaos, Father Krishna the Red then offered mankind the Saturn Junkyard, Caleb the Learned is already collecting the ingredients needed to conjure a Sega CD Junkyard, and now me (a gnome) and Father Krishna (a father and a Krishna) have come up with the astonishingly original concept of the SEGA Master System Junkyard. Covering the Master System, apparently. No, not the MegaDrive, no.

Actually, expect it to be a semi-regularly updated & upgraded blog that will be fiddling with SEGA's almost successful 8-bit wonder of a console in every way imaginable. We'll have retro-reviews, emulation tips, buying guides, top 10 explicit uses of SMS as a sex toy, incoherent rants and ...uhm... Phantasy Star stuff. Visit the SMS Junkyard, or -better yet- join its crew.